1Proprietary & Confidential
Andrew Charkin ([email protected])
Mobile Engineer
TripAdvisor, LLC
Mobile is the New CoolHJUG - Wednesday March 30th, 2011
We Are Hiring• full time, interns• Relocation compensation, sponsorships, etc• HQ in Newton, MA (outside of Boston)
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Who is TripAdvisor? And what’s with the owl?• TripAdvisor is the world’s most popular & largest travel community with..
• 40 million unique monthly visitors• 20 million registered members• 40 million reviews and opinions• Present in 28 countries
• TripAdvisor Mobile Site and Apps• 5 million unique monthly visitors
• We hit 1 million unique monthly visitors the month after we launched• Same global coverage• Native apps on a variety of platforms
• iOS (iPad app reached #1 in more than 50 countries)• Android• Nokia Ovi• HP/Palm webOS
… and our mobile site only launched 15 months ago (12/7/2009)!How did we get there so fast?
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What is a Hybrid app?• Mobile web app
• HTML, CSS, JavaScript• Quick to launch and update• No access to low level features (camera, accelerometer, etc.)• Easier to track metrics
• Native app• Java (Android)• Higher development cost across multiple platforms• Has access to lower level features• Tougher to track metrics
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What is a Hybrid app?• Hybrid Apps combine the best of both worlds
• Basic building blocks in HTML, CSS, JS displayed in a web view• Build features leveraging those low level APIs natively• Quick(er) to launch & update most features• Easy(er) to track metrics
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Hybrid App Strategy• With a hybrid app you are free to implement whatever works best• Choose the right tool for the job!
• Use simple HTML, CSS, JS to build the simple stuff• Use HTML5 to build more complicated features and push them out
cross-platform• Use native code for the most complicated/low level features
Entire page built with HTML & CSS
Photo viewer built with DHTML/JS
Photo upload built natively
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Photo viewer & Photo upload
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Android Quirks we’ve experienced
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Problem: fragmentation• Types of fragmentation:
• OS version: 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, … 3.0• Phone carrier: Verizon, Sprint, At&t, etc• Phone manufacturer: HTC, Motorola, Samsung, etc• Screen size: ldpi, mdpi, hdpi
• Solution:• deviceanywhere.com• Get different devices
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Problem: z-index• Z index is broken on all android OS’s except for 3.0
Honeycomb• Solution:
• Don’t use overlays on web pages• Trigger an onfocus before onclick to block any
onclicks behind the overlay
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Problem: Won symbol?• Android has all the currency symbols except for the
won • Solution:
• Use a W (strikethrough if you’re feeling fancy)
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Questions?
Andrew Charkin ([email protected])
Mobile Engineer
TripAdvisor, LLC
12Proprietary & Confidential
“We are hiring!” plug• Hiring like crazy!
• Lots of interesting mobile projects in the pipeline
• Lots of interesting social projects in the pipeline (what could you do with 1.2 billion geographic place pins from our Facebook users?)
• If you want to hear more about Facebook and TA come to the talk at Rice tomorrow (6pm Huff house room 107)
